Prince to fan sites: No pictures, no artwork, no album covers 4 U

The Paisleyed One wants his fans 2 know that doves cry each time they see Prince album covers and concert photographs available 4 U 2 view on fan sites. (The doves, which reportedly clock 12-hour shifts before a bank of monitors in a secretive Twin Cities location, are said to be just faking the tears at this point.) To protect their delicate feelings, Prince has gone on a legal offensive against Internet fan sites.

Prince's lawyers have requested that three fan sites remove the offending artwork, images, and even their "own photographs of their Prince-inspired tattoos," according a to a joint statement from the site operators. Houseofquake.com, princefans.com, and prince.org have banded together to fight the cease-and-desist notices and have launched princefansunited.com to make their case to the world.

Essentially, they claim that Prince either 1) doesn't own the copyrights to many of the images (in the case of fan photos, etc.) and that 2) fair use covers those situations where he does.

"The law clearly provides for displaying of images of a celebrity's likeness for newsworthy events or matters which are considered to be public interest," says a statement from princefansunited.com. "All three web sites feel that the photographs and/or likeness displayed on their web sites clearly fall within the public interest category. Additionally, the use of photographs is legal based on the fair use doctrine, i.e. the displaying of album cover art, or the collage headers created by website members using a variety of different photographs."

Prince is apparently not pleased about the publication of song lyrics, either. He makes the lyrics to his new album freely available (PDF), though, so perhaps he just has a real fetish about accurate transcription of the sublime poetry he channels into every song (or maybe he wants to make sure that "to" is spelled "2" every single time).

The story is getting plenty of press in the UK, where Prince recently fronted a three-week gig in London. Papers there appear to delight in running the story along with numerous pictures of the artist; the Guardian, for example, today offers a photo gallery of Prince costumes for those "who don't want to get sued."

Outraging your fan base isn't usually the path to commercial success, but Prince has already had commercial success and now seems more interested in just following whatever crazy schemes the doves whisper in his ears. Over record label objections, he gave his most recent album away in a UK Sunday newspaper. Then Universal demanded that a YouTube dancing baby clip (with a Prince song played on a boombox in the background) be taken down. Then Prince himself announced he was "reclaiming the Internet" by going after YouTube, eBay, and the Pirate Bay. Well, that last one's understandable. Now, he's after the fans.